


Welcome to Adulthood, Karkat

by vamprav



Series: Hair like Moirallegiance, Eyes like Matesprits [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Hemospectrum, Karkat Has Gills, M/M, Pale bloods, Podfic Welcome, Trollstuck, mentions of eggpreg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-24
Updated: 2017-01-24
Packaged: 2018-09-19 18:18:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9453926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vamprav/pseuds/vamprav
Summary: Palebloods were breeder trolls before one of the Empresses decided that they were a threat. They culled and almost all knowledge of them obliterated from the face of Alternia until only jadebloods and highbloods had knowledge of them beyond myths and crappy romcoms. Well, until Karkat molts a few months after the game spits them out.Welcome to adulthood, Karkat. Have fun!





	

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. This will probably be a short story series.  
> 2\. All redbloods are pale bloods and the Signless was as well, which means that he was still a child when he was executed.  
> 3\. Eridan is not in a quadrant with Karkat, he is something else entirely and that will be explored in another fic.  
> 4\. I leave this as an open invitation to podfic this.

Karkat woke to the taste of brine in his mouth and throat. He inhaled in panic, water filling his lungs and flowing through his… gills.

He had gills.

He wasn’t choking on water and there was the strange sensation of movement running through new parts of his neck and torso. So those were definitely gills.

Why did his mutation find new ways to screw him over almost every day? And why did he have gills?

The last thing he remembered was bitching at a meeting before John clapped him on the back. There’d been a blinding pain down his spine and then nothing. He’d woken up here to the taste of saltwater in his lungs…

Shit, he’d gone through his adult molt hadn’t he and they’d had to bring him to the ocean because that was the only thing that would help besides sopor and there was no sopor on this planet.

Slowly, Karkat opened his eyes to stare at what appeared to be the surface of the water. It wasn’t really all that far up and he half expected Gamzee or Dave to be standing over him but they weren’t, probably trying to avoid contaminating the water or some shit.

How long had he been down here anyway?

Rust bloods only took days to molt but sea-trolls took months, even years and it happened in stages. And despite his blood color Karkat now had gills.

Taking a deep lungful of water Karkat pushed himself off the sand under him and rocketed to the surface. There was really only one way to find out and that was to ask, besides Gamzee was probably properly freaking out by now.

Karkat broke the surface with a few sharp racking coughs and the sound of splashing as Gamzee and Dave bounded towards him through the water. The water was only chest height but Karkat couldn’t really support himself quite yet, his legs were wobbling.

He let the two boys drag him towards shore as he coughed up water. Now that he didn’t need to use his gills the water was useless and he needed oxygen.

Once the last of the water leaves Karkat’s lungs he takes a deep breathe and drops to his knees in the sand. Two hands rubbed at his back and it was only then that he registered the complete silence around him.

He looked up and into the wide, shocked eyes of everyone you knew. “Well, that was fucking unpleasant.” He snapped and glared at everyone. “What?”

“K-kk,” Sollux stuttered, “you’re hair...” He trailed off as Karkat glared at him.

“What’s wrong with it? Did it turn into a fucking rainbow?” The grumpy troll snapped, grabbing a lock and pulling it in front of his face, only to freeze in utter bewilderment.

“It’s white.” John said stating the obvious.

Complete silence.

Karkat dropped the lock of hair, turned to the heavens, and screamed, “WHY ME?!” at the top of his lungs.

 

~****~

 

Dave watched in mild amusement as Karkat paced back and forth across the main room of the Great House. After the pale haired boy had had a mild panic attack he’d run up to the House and kicked everyone out of the main room except for Gamzee, Eridan, and himself.

It made Dave all warm inside. It was a show of trust.

Gamzee was obvious, he was Karkat’s moirial and Eridan had stayed by virtue of pulling out the biggest book Dave had ever seen and made happy vocals about having information about the old pale bloods.

Which brings him to the question. “What the ever loving fuck is a pale blood?”

“BREEDER TROLLS!” Karkat snapped at him and just kept pacing.

Eridan gave him a mildly horrified look. “Pale bloods wwhere a subset of trolls wwho existed outside the hemospectrum. They  _ could _ reproduce wwithout a Mother Grub but that wwasn’t all they wwere. They emit pheromones that can sooth even an Empress out of a blood rage and wwere generally considered to be wwithout quadrants. Wwhite hair and blood to represent moirials and red eyes to represent matesprits. One of the Empresses decided to cull them all but before that they wwere quite common-”

“Shut up, Eridan!” Karkat snapped, cutting him off mid rant. He pivoted on one heel and strode over to the sea dweller. Eridan whimpered slightly as the white haired troll plopped down onto his lap. “Check my gills.”

“Wwhat?” Eridan spluttered, blushing bright violet.

“I have gills and if my mutation is the only thing that’s responsible for this they’ll be red! You’re the only one here with gills! So check them or I’m going to cut myself open to check if I’m really a pale blood?”

Eridan made a little distressed noise in the back of his throat and Dave wasn’t all that startled by the fist that clenched around his stomach. He’d been getting those sensations since they’d come to their new planet and all the humans went troll. None of the others had mentioned anything similar and Dave had the sudden sinking suspicion that he now knew why.

His blood was just as red as Karkat’s had been after all.

With shaky hands Eridan raised his hands to skim along Karkat’s neck, finding the gill slits on either side of the black skinned trolls neck with ease. He took a deep breath and ran the tips of his fingers over the bottom most gill slit as light as a feather.

Karkat let out a little gasp and his eyelids drooped as his head tilted. Eridan gulped, increasing the pressure of his fingers and Karkat moaned. Dave’s eyes widened and snapped to Gamzee who was curled up on the communal blanket pile watching with calm eyes.

That was to be expected, there were only really three people that could touch Karkat without Gamzee flipping out: Tavros, Dave, and Eridan. Tav was Gamzee’s matesprit, Dave had apparently found out why he had a VIP pass to the Karkat express with this debacle, and Eridan…

Well, Eridan was the wild card. No one really knew why Gamzee didn’t go for his throat the first time the sea troll had glomped the nubby horned troll. But ever since then the violet blood had taken it as permission to do whatever he wanted within reason aka what Karkat wouldn’t gut him for.

Dave looked back over at the slightly flushed pair and watched in fascination as three white slits opened in Karkat’s neck as his gills opened. The adult trolls gasped and melted into Eridan as the violet blood’s fingers slipped into them to caress the sensitive tissue folds that made up the gills.

“Karkat,” Eridan gasped out as the white gilled boy ungulated under the touch.

“Hmmmmmm.” Karkat moaned out as his eyes fluttered closed.

“They’re white. White as starlight.” Eridan purred, eyelids drooping as the realization of the color set in.

Karkat was indeed a paleblood, the hair wasn’t just a product of his mutation. When the matriorb hadn’t come through the door with them the winners thought they would be the first and last generation to ever exist on their planet but now… now Karkat was a pale blood.

And Dave…

Dave…

Dave might be…

Karkat let out a slightly horrified noise and pulled to his feet, backing away from Eridan. “I’ll just have to check the other way then.” He said, eyes wide with shock raising a claw to his wrist.

Eridan let out a little strangled sound and lunged at the red eyed troll. Gamzee was halfway across the room before Dave could even blink and the red blooded troll felt his body move without his permission.

All three crashed into Karkat at once, bearing him to the ground and pinning his arms. Eridan made little broken noises as he butted at Karkat’s stenum.

“Don’t. Don’t.” Dave whispered under his breath as Gamzee began a soothing purr.

And then Eridan started crying. It wasn’t loud or messy but he was making little broken noises as he shook and shook and shook.

“You can’t hurt yourself! I don’t want you to get hurt! I don’t want anyone hurt anymore!”

Dave felt his mouth fill with saliva as Karkat bent over him, crooning in a soothing manner and began to lick at the sea troll’s fins. The violet blood calmed almost instantly and pushed up into the adult troll’s caresses.

“Hey, little one, it’s okay, it’s okay.” The pale blood crooned as he bent further to lick at Eridan’s gill slits and tugged the other troll into his lap.

There was a little rearranging of limbs and awkward shuffling until Gamzee was leaning into Karkat’s right side and Dave was sitting in front of him, hands in Eridan’s hair, weaving little braids into it.

“We good?” Dave asked.

Eridan gave him a small smile and nodded, fins pressed back and down as a blush spread across his face.

 

~****~

 

Two weeks later Gamzee, Dave, Tavros, and Eridan all hit their adult molt.

Two days after that they all climb out of the sea and Dave had bone white hair.


End file.
